Want to be Happy and Successful? You Need to Become a Habit Mechanic

The following is adapted from a new best-selling book, The Habit Mechanic, by Dr. Jon Finn.

Have you ever noticed that knowing what you want to do is one thing, but actually doing it is another? The key to doing what you want to do—in any facet of your life—is becoming what I call a “Habit Mechanic.”

How do I know? Because I’ve seen thousands of people become Habit Mechanics, and I’ve seen them change their lives as a result.

The best part is that Habit Mechanics are not looking to be perfect. We just want to do a little bit better every day. These tiny daily wins quickly add up to help us achieve big results.

We all fail, which is a good thing (even though it doesn’t feel like it at the time) because it is the only way we can learn how to get better. I have failed many times and continue to do so. But I do my best to use these failures to spur me on. Without failure, I would not have become a Habit Mechanic.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve realized that fine-tuning your brain is the key to consistently feeling, performing, and (if you want to) leading better. But the only reliable way to do this in our challenging world is to become a Habit Mechanic.

We Need a New Approach to Help Us Be Our Best

Sometimes, when I talk about how important it is to become a Habit Mechanic with people, they ask me why we need a new approach when there are so many traditional self-development approaches.

If you’re wondering the same thing, I’ll tell you what I tell them: the well-intended traditional approaches you might have tried to help you be your best (e.g., self-help, training, and coaching) are typically not rooted in cutting-edge science about how your brain and habits actually work.

On top of that, in my experience, these experiences are never grounded in comprehensive behavioral science that can actually empower you to fulfill your potential. Therefore, these well-intended traditional approaches are suboptimal at helping you be your best because they are not designed to help you change your brain.

Similarly, quick tips and tricks are not designed to help you change your brain or consistently be your best. And on a very serious note, some of the advice given in these tips and tricks is misleading and potentially dangerous.

Traditional Approaches and Tips are Suboptimal

Because of all this, if you have not been able to make successful changes before, it is not your fault. It is the advice and training you have been given that is faulty.

It makes sense once you understand how the brain works. Traditional support to help us fulfill our potential typically comes in the form of knowledge and skills. But we don’t run on knowledge and skills. We run on habits. Therefore, traditional approaches can do more harm than good. For example, we try, we fail, and then we beat ourselves up and develop a negative mindset about ourselves.

To understand what I mean, consider that the vast majority of people know what they need to do to live a healthy lifestyle. And, they also have the skills and resources necessary to lead a healthy lifestyle (e.g., eating five portions of fruit and veg per day). Yet, even if people agree these are good things to do, they do not necessarily do them.

In a similar vein, most people know that beating themselves up less often and getting more good quality sleep would be helpful. But they don’t do those things.

Bottom line? We don’t do what we know we should do. Instead, we do what we are in the habit of doing.

Become a Habit Mechanic

Habit Mechanics step out of that paradigm. They know how to use powerful insights from neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to actually feel better and do better.

What does this mean in plain English? By becoming a Habit Mechanic, you can change your brain and design your environment to make it easier to be your best.

There are lots of strategies to help you do this. For example, Habit Mechanics engage in what I call “Me Power Conditioning.” This means deliberately working toward being your best by first analyzing your current habits—including those connected to worrying, being too self-critical, procrastinating, and sabotaging your own success—and then building more new helpful habits.

The Habit Mechanic Mindset

To be our best in this challenging world, we must adopt a proactive “Habit Mechanic Mindset.” This means thinking of your life as a journey where you will travel through peaks and troughs.

When you notice yourself going into a trough, you deliberately build new habits to help yourself get out of it faster than you otherwise would. When you feel like you are on a peak, you might want to build new habits that allow you to push yourself even higher and stay there for longer.

Becoming a Habit Mechanic requires learning some specific skills. Ultimately, it can be broken down into three simple steps. First, you must hone your secret superpower: the power to learn (which you have always been able to do, and are doing all the time, no matter what age you are). You must also begin to understand yourself by developing your “Habit Mechanic intelligence.”

Next, you must learn to focus on “Me Power Conditioning.” As I mentioned above, this will allow you to deliberately work toward being your best, and show you how to use emotional regulation to develop your resilience.

Third, you must learn to use your “Habit Mechanic’s Tool Kit.” By learning to use these tools, you’ll be able to build new habits that will help you feel better, improve your work-life balance, supercharge your performance, reduce your stress levels, stop you from beating yourself up, build your confidence, and more.

You Can Change Your Life

Learning how to become a Habit Mechanic is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. You have to have all the pieces (the three core skills I described above), and you have to focus on putting them together correctly.

However, it’s worth it. Think of your life as a journey where you travel through peaks and troughs. When you notice yourself going into a trough, deliberately build new habits (or reestablish helpful old habits) to help yourself get out of it faster than you otherwise would.

When you feel like you are on a peak, assess whether you really are and if you need to push yourself further or take your foot off the pedal and recharge. That is being a true Habit Mechanic. And, once you master the skills needed to make your habits work for you instead of against you—in other words, you become a Habit Mechanic—you can truly change your life.

For more advice on how to become a Habit Mechanic, you can find The Habit Mechanic here.